In recent years, various media such as a DVD (Digital Versatile Disc), a Blu-ray Disc™, or a flash memory have been used as information recording medium. In particular, in recent years, the use of memory cards such as a USB memory mounting a large-capacity flash memory thereon has been popularized. Users can record content such as music or movies on various information recording media, load the media into a reproducing device (player), and reproduce the content.
However, copyrights, distribution rights, and the like of most content such as music data or image data are possessed by the authors or sellers thereof. Therefore, when content is provided to users, certain restrictions on use are generally set. That is, use of content is permitted only to users having a legitimate right to use, whereas unregulated use such as copying without consent is not permitted.
For example, AACS (Advanced Access Content System) is known as a standard for controlling the use of content. The AACS standard defines a use control system for content recorded on a Blu-ray Disc™, for example. Specifically, the AACS standard specifies an algorithm or the like in which encrypted content is recorded, for example, on the Blu-ray Disc™, and which makes it possible to restrict users capable of acquiring an encryption key for the encrypted content only to legitimate users.
However, the present AACS specification has a specification for a use control system of content recorded on discs such as a Blu-ray Disc™ but does not have sufficient specification for content recorded on flash memories such as, for example, a memory card. Thus, there is a possibility that copyright protection of content recorded on such a memory card is not sufficient. Therefore, there is a demand for establishing a use control system for controlling the use of content using media such as a memory card.
For example, the AACS standard specifies the following specifications as a use control system for content recorded on discs such as a Blu-ray Disc™.
(a) A specification for the use of content copied from a medium (for example, a ROM disc), on which content is already recorded, to a disc such as a Blu-ray Disc™; and
(b) A specification for the use of content which is downloaded from a server and recorded on a disc such as a Blu-ray Disc™.
For example, the AACS specification specifies the use control of such content.
The AACS standard specifies Managed Copy (MC) in which when content is copied between a medium in accordance with the specification (a), the copying is permitted only when copy permission information is acquired from a management server.
Moreover, the AACS standard specifies various download types as the process of downloading content from a server in accordance with the specification (b). Examples of the download types include EST (Electric Sell Through) which uses user devices such as a PC and MoD (Manufacturing on Demand) which uses shared terminals installed in a convenience store or the like. Even when recording and using content on a disc through these downloading processes, it is necessary to perform the processes in accordance with predetermined rules.
These processes ate disclosed in JP-A-2008-98765, for example.
However, as described above, the AACS standard is intended to control the use of content recorded on discs such as a Blu-ray Disc™ but does not have a sufficient specification for controlling the use of content recorded on flash memory-type memory cards including USB memories and the like.